The 2018 federal appropriations bill signed into law on March 23rd includes an addition to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) stating that “[a]n employer may not keep tips received by its employees for any purposes, including allowing managers or supervisors to keep any portion of employees’ tips, regardless of whether or not the employer takes a tip credit.”

On June 11, 2015, the Craft Beverage Modernization and Tax Reform Act of 2015 was introduced in the U.S. Senate with a companion bill, the Small BREW Act, introduced on July 8 in the House of Representatives.

Craft brewers and macro brewers are making separate pleas to Congress for relief on federal beer excise taxes. Currently, craft brewers (producers up to 2 million barrels a year) pay $7 of taxes on each on the first 60,000 barrels and $18 of taxes on each subsequent barrel while macro brewers (producers over 2 million barrels a year) pay the full $18 of taxes per barrel on all barrels produced.

On September 2, 2014, the South Carolina Department of Revenue released an Information Letter (IL #14-12) giving further explanation to the recently enacted “Stone Bill” and in doing so has provided a good synopsis of the rules relating to sales of brewed beer at breweries.

This page is for informational purposes only. Any result the law firm and/or its attorneys may have achieved on behalf of clients in other matters does not necessarily indicate similar results can be obtained for other clients.